Morning journal and courier., 1887-04-28
Mrs. Langtry as Galatea,


Those who recently enjoyed the privilege
of seeing Mrs. Langtry as the animated statue
Galatea were indulged with pleasure both
great and rare. Such realistic glimpse in
to the far-away past of classic Greece is not
offered often anywhere because for variety
of reasons itcan and must be seldom possible.
Galatea- to the sculptor with the
single-hearted worship of the creature for
the creator-gliding about the studio of
Pygmalion, while presenting the illusion alb
solute of being from some other world and
upsetting the proprieties with winning inno-
cence and artless grace, became veritable
and lovely fragment from the antique. Even
in later peculiar situations and
when she became the unconscious
cause of amusing and perplexing
confusion every rising smile was checked
in the presence of the serious statue, while
the startling information t'I was born yester-
day" came whispered from her lips with
earnest truthfulness that fairly glowed.
A representation SO entirely artistic in tone
and purely refined in effect is not likely to
be wholly appreciated by everybody; pre-
paratory study and culture are required.
1t has been well said that learning to paint
is learning to see. It is also positive that
not everyone who possesses good natural eyes
has artistic sight, though few are ready or
willing to believe it of themselves and to ad-
nit the fact. Convinced that they can look
at given object as well as anyone, they
therefore conclude that they see all that there
is to be seen. Such an eye can stare into
the works of precious chronometer that has
proved itself capable of all but absolute pre-
cision in time-keeping, and although this
staring eye can see the movement and the
wheels which combine in the motion, no one
will contend that such unskilled sight can
recognize the secret of remarkable accuracy
or be able to comprehend and measure all
that is clearly valuable to the eye of the ex-
pert workman matchmaker, who understands
every detail of it's construction and who may
have himself made this same chronometer.
And SO the scholar finds himself in ancient
Rome and upon the 'sVia Sacra' intently
recalling what he can remember of his boy
hoods and his manhood g Latin friend Horace,
the Roman poet gentleman, who in his day
walked this same street, wrote of it and i'm
mortalized in verse an indiscreet acquain-
tance by whom he was on one occasion there
bothered. Everything seen suggests the be-
loved Horace. Every inch of ground where
the traveller now stands is classic and in a
measure sacred in his eyes. Another man
walks upon the same Via Sacra in his turn,
but is conscious of no unusual sentiment he
is stirred by no other emotion than is COM
mon to him at his home or upon his village
for Iaa
ment thus and here obtained by the sc holar.
His actual eyes are quite as good as those of
that otner visitor, the scholar and the poet
lover. And SO also it is with pictorial or
other form of art. Two men are before a
famous picture; one of them looks through
and through and up and down the canvas,
takes it all in, knows where the values are
preserved, where the harmonies are grouped
or tones happily contrasted and why, under
stands the drawing, color, composition and
technique with correct estimation
and subtle enjoyment of cold sky
reflections skillfully mingled with warmer
local tones. Compared with such an
observer as this, the Impression produced on
the other person is slight. 1t is true that the
second man sees the details of drawing and
color as plainly as the first, but they convey
no meaning to him; they might be anything
else and it would be all the same and he
would be quite as we'll satisfied. If the sub
iect of the picture is simple or plainly story
telling his attention may be attracted for a
few moments while he looks as hard as he
can in the effort to display his remarkable
penetration by discovery of some trifing
be greatly delighted if he could find
and point to the very spot where
the painter had put on a button
less on one side of a coat than upon the 9th
or. In this sadly frequent style and manner
of looking at pictures he gets what he can
out. of it and there ends his enjoyment, and
that is the extent and sum of it, which is
more evidence that the bodily eye sees but
| blind and the statement of this plain fact
brings us around again to Mrs. Langtry and
to the form of art exhibited in her living and
speaking pictures.
It NAV be said that the Galatea here re-
ferred to bears the same relation and COM
parison to dramatic trash such as the public
is invited to pay for that a Haydn or Beetho-
ven chamber-music sonata of stringed instru-
ments sustains to the brazen, machine dis
cordance of forlorn street band. If all this
is true, Mrs. Langry takes rank among gen.
uine art workers and is engaged in aesthetic
educational missionary work which deserves
the earnest support of those who prove re-
spect for art by their works.
1t is here stated, and something has also
been said in the direction of proof of the
statement, that thoroughly good play, like
thoroughly good picture or other work of
high art, needs preparation and cultivation
for its actual comprehension and for its COM
plete enjoyment. It is, therefore, evident
that a kind and quality of taste that is quite
filed full and satisfied with the characteristic
stamps, vibrations and fourishes of clog
dance may be relied upon to be dissatisfied
with as well as unappreciative of the elegant
refinement of Mrs. Langtry's Galatea.
It is also suggested that the experienced
and educated critic, like the artist himself,
much too easily and frequently fluids blem-
ishes of weakness and error in such work as
he is called upon to examine and to judge.
It is, therefore, his habit well as his pref
erence to look first for the admirable-the